A practice owner’s guide to the AHPRA advertising rules

A plain-English guide to the AHPRA advertising rules: what they cover, what section 133 prohibits, and every key change since 2020, by date.

20 January 202612 min read

Updated 29 October 2026 to reflect the latest rules and guidance.

The general Guidelines for advertising a regulated health service took effect on 14 December 2020 and are still the current version. Ahpra has said they will be updated to reflect the 2022 penalty increases and the ‘surgeon’ title when they are next reviewed.

If you run a practice, the AHPRA advertising rules apply to you, even if you’ve never placed an ad in your life. Your website, social media accounts, Google Business Profile and even your booking platform all count as advertising. The registered practitioner is responsible for all of it, including anything an agency, staff member or influencer produces on their behalf.

The rules have also changed a lot since 2020: new general guidelines in December 2020, much higher penalties from October 2022, a protected ‘surgeon’ title from September 2023, cosmetic-specific guidelines in 2023 and 2025, and a steady stream of TGA guidance on prescription medicines. This guide pulls it together in plain English. It isn’t legal advice, but it will help you spot the most common problems before they turn into complaints.

What changed since 2020: a timeline

These are the changes that matter most for practice marketing, in date order.

14 December 2020: revised Guidelines for advertising a regulated health service take effect, with expanded guidance on testimonials, titles and what counts as acceptable evidence. Ahpra’s updated Advertising compliance and enforcement strategy starts the same day.
1 January 2022: the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code 2021 commences, with a transition period that ended on 30 June 2022.
2 September 2022: Health Ministers announce a crackdown on cosmetic surgery and ask for the proposal to relax the testimonial ban to be withdrawn. The ban stays.
21 October 2022: maximum penalties for advertising offences under the National Law rise from $5,000 to $60,000 for an individual and from $10,000 to $120,000 for a body corporate. Ahpra says these apply in all jurisdictions, including Western Australia, as of July 2024.
1 July 2023: Medical Board guidelines for doctors who advertise cosmetic surgery, and for doctors who perform cosmetic surgery and procedures, take effect.
20 September 2023: ‘surgeon’ becomes a protected title for medical practitioners in most states and territories.
7 March 2024: the TGA stops accepting terms like ‘wrinkle reducing injections’ where they would be understood as promoting a prescription medicine.
2 September 2025: Ahpra and the National Boards’ guidelines for advertising higher risk non-surgical cosmetic procedures take effect, applying to anyone who advertises them.
1 December 2025: National Law protections for people who make notifications to Ahpra, and restrictions on non-disclosure agreements that would stop people raising concerns, commence (4 December 2025 in South Australia).
1 January 2026: the TGA’s Compliance Principles for 2026 and 2027 apply, with cosmetic procedures, weight loss medicines and medicinal cannabis among the first priority focus areas.
28 March 2026: the maximum fixed ACL penalty for companies doubles to $100 million for conduct from that date.
18 June 2026: the TGA publishes new guidance on the restrictions on advertising prescription medicines to the public and updates its health services guidance.
5 October 2026: the specialist title ‘podiatric surgeon’ can no longer be used. It has been replaced by ‘surgical podiatrist’.

Who the rules apply to

The advertising provisions of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law apply to anyone who advertises a regulated health service. That includes registered practitioners in all regulated professions, but also unregistered practice owners, companies, marketing agencies and anyone else who publishes the advertising.

The registered practitioner carries the professional risk. The guidelines say advertisers must check content produced by others on their behalf, including staff and agencies.

What counts as advertising?

Advertising is broad. It covers any public communication that promotes a regulated health service. In practice, that includes:

your website, including service pages, blogs, FAQs and practitioner profiles
social media posts, Stories, Reels, comments, bios and the hashtags you use
Google Ads, Meta ads and other paid campaigns
your Google Business Profile, directory listings and booking platforms
brochures, signage, emails, SMS and newsletters
page titles, meta descriptions and alt text

If a patient could see it and it promotes your services, assume it’s advertising.

The five things section 133 prohibits

Section 133 of the National Law sets out the core rules. Advertising a regulated health service must not:

Be false, misleading or deceptive, or likely to be. That includes claims you can’t support with acceptable evidence, and anything that creates a misleading overall impression.
Offer a gift, discount or other inducement without stating the terms and conditions of the offer.
Use testimonials or purported testimonials about the service.
Create an unreasonable expectation of beneficial treatment, such as implying guaranteed results or that a procedure is pain-free.
Directly or indirectly encourage the indiscriminate or unnecessary use of regulated health services.

Since 21 October 2022, the maximum penalty is $60,000 per offence for an individual and $120,000 for a body corporate. A breach can also be treated as a conduct matter, which can lead to action against a practitioner’s registration.

How Ahpra enforces the rules

Ahpra’s Advertising compliance and enforcement strategy, updated from 14 December 2020, is risk-based. A low-risk first breach usually starts with a letter asking you to fix the advertising. Continued non-compliance can lead to conditions on registration that restrict a practitioner’s advertising. High-risk matters, such as misleading claims about curing serious illness, targeting vulnerable groups or unlawful use of protected titles, can go straight to prosecution or disciplinary action.

Testimonials: the most common slip-up

The testimonial rule catches more practices than any other. Ahpra defines testimonials as recommendations or positive statements about the clinical aspects of a regulated health service used in advertising. That covers statements about a patient’s symptoms, their outcome or a practitioner’s clinical skill. You can’t use these in your advertising, even if they’re genuine and the patient agreed.

That means no patient success stories on your website, no reposting glowing reviews to social media and no quoting Google reviews in your ads. Comments that are only about customer service or communication style, like friendly reception staff or easy parking, are not testimonials and can generally be used.

Patients are still free to leave reviews on third-party platforms like Google, and you can ask them to. Ahpra’s guidance says responsibility follows control: you’re responsible for reviews on your own website and social media pages, and you should take care if you engage with reviews on third-party sites, because that can amount to using a testimonial. For cosmetic procedures, the guidelines go further and treat liking or interacting with a positive review as using it.

Claims need evidence

Any claim about what a treatment can achieve needs acceptable evidence. Ahpra’s guidelines say acceptable evidence mostly means empirical data from formal research, and that anecdotes based on observations in practice generally don’t meet the standard.

The safer approach is to describe what a service involves, who it may suit, what the risks are and what to expect, rather than promising outcomes. Words like ‘guaranteed’, ‘permanent’, ‘pain-free’ and ‘safe’ are red flags, as are superlatives like ‘the best’ or ‘leading’ that you can’t substantiate.

Titles and qualifications

How you describe your practitioners matters, and parts of this are now criminal law rather than guidelines.

‘Surgeon’

Since 20 September 2023 in most states and territories, section 115A of the National Law restricts the title ‘surgeon’, alone or in combinations like ‘cosmetic surgeon’, to medical practitioners with specialist registration in surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, or ophthalmology. The Medical Board’s FAQ says NSW, SA and WA have also made the change. Misuse carries a maximum penalty of $60,000, three years’ imprisonment, or both. Dental surgical titles are not affected.

‘Podiatric surgeon’

Health Ministers approved replacing the specialist title ‘podiatric surgeon’ with ‘surgical podiatrist’. After a 12-month transition, the old title can’t be used after 5 October 2026.

‘Specialist’ and ‘Dr’

The guidelines say words like ‘specialist’, ‘specialises in’, ‘specialty’ or ‘specialised’ are likely to mislead if the practitioner doesn’t hold specialist registration. If a practitioner who isn’t a medical practitioner uses ‘Dr’, the guidelines say their profession should be clear, for example ‘Dr Lee (Osteopath)’.

Cosmetic surgery endorsement

Cosmetic surgery can be endorsed on a doctor’s registration from 1 July 2023, but the Medical Board says there are no approved programs of study yet. Check the public register before describing anyone as endorsed.

Extra rules for cosmetic procedures

Two sets of cosmetic advertising guidelines sit on top of the general guidelines:

Cosmetic surgery (from 1 July 2023). The Medical Board’s guidelines for doctors who advertise cosmetic surgery require clear information about the doctor’s qualifications and type of registration, genuine and unedited before and after images with a prominent warning that results vary, no images of under-18s, no targeting of under-18s, an ‘adult content’ label on social media ads, and total costs rather than just the consultation fee.
Higher risk non-surgical procedures (from 2 September 2025). Ahpra and the National Boards’ guidelines cover cosmetic injectables, thread lifts, sclerotherapy, PRP, hair transplants, dental veneers and procedures that penetrate the dermis using chemicals, light, laser, heat or cold. They apply to individuals and businesses, not just practitioners. They require the practitioner’s registration details, including their registration number, ban testimonials (including from influencers and ambassadors), set strict image rules and prohibit trivialising content, competitions and tools that predict a person’s appearance after a procedure.

The practice guidelines also ban promoting loans, payment plans or financing schemes for these procedures, and free or discounted procedures in exchange for promotion, including for influencers.

Prescription medicines and the TGA

Separately, the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 prohibits advertising prescription-only medicines to the public, and the TGA enforces it. That includes naming them, using brand names, abbreviations, nicknames, class terms or hashtags that point to them, and imagery like syringes or pens. The TGA’s June 2026 guidance lists examples such as ‘weight-loss injections’, ‘wrinkle reduction injections’, ‘peptides’ and ‘medicinal cannabis’, and says business names and logos can also be advertising.

Disclaimers like ‘speak to your practitioner’ don’t fix the problem. If you offer treatments that involve prescription medicines, your marketing needs to focus on the consultation and the concern or condition, not the medicine. The TGA quotes maximum civil penalties of up to $1.65 million per breach for individuals and $16.5 million for corporations.

What it means for your marketing

Website

Remove testimonials and review widgets that show review text. Make sure every claim is either a factual description or backed by acceptable evidence. Check practitioner titles, add registration details where cosmetic procedures are advertised, and look at booking menus and price lists for named prescription medicines.

Google Business Profile and reviews

You can ask every patient for a review, without incentives and without filtering who you ask. Don’t copy reviews into your own advertising, and respond to reviews briefly and without discussing anyone’s care. Check your business name, services list and posts for prescription medicine terms.

Social media and influencers

Every promotional post is advertising. Don’t share or repost patient content about outcomes, moderate comments on pages you control and consider disabling reviews or tagging. You’re responsible for influencer and ambassador content you commission, and the TGA says both the clinic and the creator can be responsible.

Paid ads

Ad copy, landing pages and keywords are all advertising. Avoid outcome promises and any reference to prescription medicines. For cosmetic procedures, label social ads as adult content and don’t target under-18s.

Email and SMS

Newsletters and promotional texts follow the same rules, and offers need their terms and conditions. The ACMA has also made clear that once a message includes marketing content it is a commercial message under the spam rules and needs a working unsubscribe option.

Common mistakes we see

Review widgets on the home page that display patient comments about results.
Old blog posts and social highlights that still contain testimonials or outdated claims.
‘Specialist’ or ‘surgeon’ used loosely in bios, page titles or Google Business Profile names.
Booking systems that list prescription treatments by name or price.
Offers like ‘free consultation this month only’ without terms and conditions.

A practical checklist

Search your website and social accounts for patient reviews, success stories or quotes about care or results.
Search for guaranteed, permanent, pain-free, safe, best and leading.
Check before and after photos against the image rules and confirm you have separate advertising consent.
Make sure every discount or offer states its terms and conditions.
Check every practitioner title against the public register, including ‘surgeon’, ‘specialist’ and ‘podiatric surgeon’.
Search for names, abbreviations, nicknames and hashtags of prescription medicines, including in booking menus, business names and image alt text.
Confirm cosmetic procedure advertising includes registration details and risk and recovery information.
Review any influencer or ambassador content still live.
Repeat the review at least once a year and whenever guidelines change.

How this fits with other rules

The National Law and Ahpra’s guidelines are one layer. The TGA regulates advertising of therapeutic goods, including prescription medicines and medical devices. The Australian Consumer Law applies to every business, so misleading claims, fake or edited reviews and unclear pricing can also be ACL issues, with a maximum fixed penalty for companies of $100 million for conduct from 28 March 2026. The Privacy Act governs how you use patient information in marketing, including website tracking.

Frequently asked questions

Are the AHPRA advertising guidelines new?

No. The current general guidelines took effect on 14 December 2020. What has changed since are the penalties, the ‘surgeon’ title, the cosmetic-specific guidelines and the TGA’s guidance on prescription medicines. Ahpra has said the general guidelines will be updated when next reviewed.

Do the rules apply if the practice owner isn’t a registered practitioner?

Yes. The advertising offences apply to anyone who advertises a regulated health service, including unregistered owners and companies.

Can we use Google reviews on our website?

Not if they refer to clinical aspects of care, such as symptoms, outcomes or clinical skill. Comments only about customer service are not testimonials.

Does a disclaimer make a claim compliant?

Generally not. A disclaimer won’t fix a misleading overall impression, and the TGA says advising people to speak with a practitioner doesn’t exempt material that promotes a prescription medicine.

Need a hand?

The rules can feel restrictive, but they don’t stop you marketing well. Honest, detailed information about your services builds trust with patients in a way bold claims can’t.

If you’d like a full review, our AHPRA compliance audit checks your website, ads, social media and listings against the current guidelines, with compliant replacement wording for every issue we find. If your marketing touches prescription medicines, our TGA advertising compliance service covers that side, and our compliance training helps your team get it right before anything is published. This article is general guidance based on the published rules, not legal advice. Final responsibility for advertising sits with the registered practitioner, and complex situations may need independent legal advice.